Within Kipling's 'Lest We Forget' is great cause for gratitude and reflection

Published 7:00 pm, Tuesday, April 21, 2009

There are reasons beyond sentiment for which the phrase "Lest We Forget" ought to endure.

The reasoning is akin to the concept that we are not our own fathers or our own mothers nor other forebears way beyond our poor, if that is the case, appreciation for the years and folks past this fleeting time.

It is quite obvious, or ought to be, that we are not our own creators, although there are those who may think otherwise if, indeed, they, or we, do think at all. Perhaps there is more supposing than thinking. And that is to say this: Do we think to the point of pondering and wondering just who we are and what we have become or just what "we" - as in our forebears - were in times past?

Do we remember those brave souls who have gone before us both in peacetime and in wartime? Do we remember those who never returned home from war, who are in eternal repose on battlefields, now graveyards, across the way, across the Atlantic, across the Pacific? We do remember those for whom there is no accounting, who vanished on or into the sea, into the air, over and into the land?

Do we remember with thanksgiving and respect those, living and dead, who served their country valiantly throughout the years and throughout the wars "Over There" or on the Home-Front whether in military uniform or not.

The 1957-founded Confederate Air Force (now, Commemorative Air Force headquartered in Midland) adopted the "Lest We Forget" motto to keep vibrant the nation's air-power heritage and to remember the sacrifices of men and women dedicated to the causes of freedom and liberty. In its original mission, the CAF also adopted the "Keep 'em Flying" motto toward restoring the remnants of World War II aircraft and the amended mission to include American aircraft throughout the nation's aviation history.

If research and interpretation hold true, the phrase "Lest We Forget" was popularized by English poet-author Rudyard Kipling's 1897 poem "Recessional." Therein, according to encyclopedic references, Kipling warned of the "perils of hubris" and how the arrogance of "overweening pride" could result in the lamentable downfall of greatness as in a great power, being in Kipling's time the imperialism of the British Empire, a global power, which it is no more. Did the people of a great and wealthy nation "forget their God" -the Divine Providence who brought them thus far?

Britain, once again in history, was at its apex but was soon to decline, as the new horizon brought forth the 20th Century and the "Great War" - the War of 1914, the "War to End All Wars - and yet another greatly grievous war, the 1939-1945 World War II.

As the 19th Century was drawing to a close, Kipling penned:

"God of our fathers, known of old. / Lord of our far-flung battle-line / Beneath whose awful hand we hold / Dominion over palm and pine / Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, / Lest we forget!"

In 1914, early into World War I, English poet Laurence Binyon's "Ode of Remembrance" became a tribute to the young and stalwart soldiers, "Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow" but who "fell with their faces to the foe. / They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: / Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn (condemn). / At the going down of the sun and in the morning / We will remember them. We will remember them."

In 1915, John McCrae, a Canadian physician-poet serving on the Western Front in World War I, wrote a 97-word poem on a battlefield-graveyard to express his great grief and especially so over a fallen soldier-friend. The middle verse goes thusly: "We are the Dead. Short days ago / We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, / Loved and were loved, and now we lie / In Flanders fields."

While we in America and throughout the world, free or not, are striving just to live "in the now" or just to survive or just to imagine how we would like tomorrow to be, in the ideal, with rose-colored glasses or, perhaps, just survivable barring miracles, perhaps we would be well to remember the past, the good and the ill, and to reflect on the strength of gratitude reflected in "Lest We Forget."